


laelaps and tuemessian

by Anonymous



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Gen, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25066318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Obviouslyyoudidn't know...people were living out here," Trav says carefully. He reaches out a hand and hoists Charlie to his feet. It is undeniably effortless. An athlete of some kind, perhaps? A vampire? No, not that pale. "You get a pass. A trespasser pass."After a moment, Charlie realises this to be a joke. Chuckling stiffly, he glances at the hand curled loosely around his arm and makes another unwise snap decision."Okay, so I'm trespassing. Cool. I mean, not cool. Sorry. Uh. Do you know where else in the woods I might be able to set up camp?" The grip tightens around his elbow, almost imperceptibly but inarguably so. He could still run. Maybe he should."I wouldn't recommend it.""Well, hah, what a coincidence, that's why I'm here!"---Charlie might only be human, but the magical world has always enticed him. In search of sources for his schoolwork and perhaps some larger answers, he finds himself in the wilderness of upstate Maine. Hijinks ensue.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 76
Collections: Anonymous





	laelaps and tuemessian

**Author's Note:**

> > _"Despite these anomalous cases, it is conceded by the scientific community at large that study of magic by humans remains less a political than a biological impossibility. Whilst each non-human people's magic lends itself to certain specialisations, a human in the same environment would be forever inhibited by their lack of innate magical skill. (Appendix B constitutes an inexhaustive list of disproven human magic users.) They cannot cast spells, brew potions or even detect others' magic. This is not an indictment of their other talents but a friendly admonition; in all but the most theoretical of fields, a human scholar of magic simply could not exist."_
> 
> D. B. Technoblade, _On Magical Propogation in a Post-Secrecy Society_

Magic, in Charlie's eyes, is more than just the Grail of his dubious further education. It's everything that resides behind the curtain. Not the legal shit they let humans see - _everything else_. An egregious offence to science; everything that lurks past the boundaries of the quantifiable. It follows its own rules. There are a million ways to phrase it, but fittingly enough they all skirt around the fact of the matter. Most of magic simply _can't_ be studied by humans, by its very nature. Charlie rejects this, by his very nature.

Three courses and three summer jobs and three quarters of a degree later, here he is in the American wilderness. It's certainly a lot. He rests his head on the cool window, soothed by the chuntering motion of the train, and thinks about shields and spears.

When it finally slows he leaps from the car and hits the platform running. His backpack bounces on his back like an unruly child. Excitement shoves every muscle towards the station. Squat red brick against the wilderness, an eyesore scar on the bright landscape, it is nonetheless his escape.

_What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?_

An inscrutable, bored teenager gives him directions to the creatively named "town" without once looking up from their phone. Charlie thanks them with unnecessary energy and all but bounds into the forest, animated easily by the fruition of a lifelong dream. He ignores the beaten path in favour of skipping through the trees. Afternoon sun beats down on the back of his neck. Everything is good.

_For argument's sake, they are both implicitly assumed to be indestructible._

The forest is as beautiful as he'd thought, as he'd dreamed, as he'd known it would be. Swathes of gold and crimson blur past him, mystifying flutters of colour in the breeze. Autumn in full swing. His triumphant shout of laughter sparkles brightly and hangs in the air, like something more than sound. He doesn't notice the man until it's too late.

_Furthermore, it is assumed that they are two seperately functioning entities._

Unlike Charlie, who has been training hard for this trip for months on end to the point of wiry readiness, the stranger is simply solid and pale. Momentum sends one soaring into the other. Two plus two remains four. He sucks in a breath, powerless to stop, closes his eyes and mentally prepares an apology for what's going to happen next.

_This paradox arises upon two incompatible assertions, and as such disproves its own dilemma._

But when they collide, it's him that goes flying and the man that blinks, bemused. He hasn't moved from his spot in the leaves. Huh. Weird.

_If there exists an unstoppable force, it follows logically that there can be no such thing as an immovable object._

"What are you doing here?" he asks Charlie, brow furrowed slightly in unaffected curiosity. He seems genuinely surprised, in the pleasant way less expressive people do when they're about to gun you down for trespassing on their land.

_And so if there exists an immovable object, it follows logically that there can be no such thing as an unstoppable force._

Winded, Charlie just shrugs for a few seconds until his breath returns. With his backpack underneath him and the quiet man staring down at him, he feels rather like an upturned tortoise and just as vulnerable. He shakes detritus out of his hair and tries not to examine the thought too closely.

"God, I'm sorry, I didn't realise this was...uh, private property?" The statement tapers into a question as he casually tries and fails to stand up. The man blinks slowly and tracks the movement of his wrists without moving to help. "I haven't seen any houses or fences or anything, or I would have...yeah. Sorry. Can you point me in the direction of town, maybe? I seem to have lost the path."

With every rambling word, the expression on the stony face in front of him shifts from perplexed to bewildered to oddly soothed. What this means in practice is that his eyebrows shuffle around minutely whilst he keeps a maddeningly polite half-smile like plastic on his face. Charlie is intrigued, and decides there and then that they are going to be friends.

"Obviously _you_ didn't know...people were living out here," he says carefully. He reaches out a hand and hoists Charlie to his feet. It is undeniably effortless. An athlete of some kind, perhaps? A vampire? No, not that pale. "You get a pass. A trespasser pass."

After a moment, Charlie realises this to be a joke. Chuckling stiffly, he glances at the hand curled loosely around his arm and makes another unwise snap decision.

"Okay, so I'm trespassing. Cool. I mean, not cool. Sorry. Uh. Do you know where else in the woods I might be able to set up camp?" The grip tightens around his elbow, almost imperceptibly but inarguably so. He could still run. Maybe he should.

"I wouldn't recommend it," comes the answer, blisteringly neutral.

"Well, hah, what a coincidence, that's why I'm here! So-"

"You've come all the way out here...to go camping in the middle of nowhere?" It's contemptuous at best, and Charlie scrambles for an explanation.

"Well, I mean, I'm writing a treatise and...uni stuff. Student things. Doesn't matter. What's your name? Mine's Charlie. Charlie Dal-"

There's a sudden noise, the whiplash popcorn crack of lightning blasting tree bark. Charlie turns abruptly to see his impromptu guide has stopped moving. Genuine horror twists his features. What kind of deadly faux-pas has he managed to make?

"No names," he rumbles, he literally rumbles in a voice so authoritative that Charlie nearly falls over again. "You may call me Trav. I mean. If you want." Ooh. That's new. Short for Travis?

"You _may_ call me Slime," he offers, semi-sarcastically, trying not to let his enthusiasm bleed through. This is the kind of thing he's read about in textbooks, but never seen at home; Vermont's non-human residents are so casually integrated into the modern world that most of the old traditions no longer really exist. Hence the research trip into the depths of bumfuck nowhere, Maine.

It's interesting that the people here have such superstitions about the fae, but this...this is just a lonely guy wandering around his homestead. He's surprised, then, when Trav nods solemnly instead of asking him for something a little less jokey.

Maybe the guy's a dryad, but he doesn't move as stiffly as Jared does. Maybe he thinks Charlie is actually one of the Fae playing in his woods, what with all the stiff politeness. Imagine that! Shit, the list of things he _wouldn't_ do to meet a member of the rarest people in the world is very short. Using his uni grant to rough it two states east of home is not on it.

They walk in silence after that, Charlie trailing behind. He wears the cowed smile of the guided. Trav seems to know every root, every pebble, every dip in the ground. Which of course you would, if you lived in a place like this all your life. If he wasn't so lost, he almost certainly would be less jealous.

Ahead of him, Trav pauses on a tree stump to card a hand through his tightly curled hair. Somehow, despite the bright blue sweatpants and graphic tee, he melts into the landscape like just another plant. Charlie squints up at Trav's sturdy frame against the sunlight, and his brain supplies him with 'tree' before 'person'. Which is a tad worrying, to say the least. Especially for someone who almost certainly isn't a tree.

"Town's just through that copse," Trav says, worrying the hem of his t-shirt and turning to meet Charlie's eyes with his own. The direction he points is spattered with sunset's fading light. He starts listing off suggestions on one hand. Instructions, more accurately.

"Becca's will have a room free. The townspeople are friendly enough, but don't overstep. Internet and signal should be great, but only in town. If you're determined to camp, do it on the edge of the forest."

Eye contact notwithstanding, Trav's attention on Charlie seems to slip away by the second. He turns back towards the woods, ignoring Charlie's series of polite nods, and says, "Don't be so quick to give away your name." As he stalks away into the forest, Charlie wonders if small towns just have a predisposition towards the eccentric. Maybe Trav's just the local wacky hermit, whatever. (Hell, he could be a werewolf or something - Charlie never did pay attention in class when they were doing identification. Always seemed a tad speciesist to assume that kind of thing by personality.)

Approximately three steps through the door of Becca's Inn, he decides that the two concepts aren't exactly mutually exclusive.

The booth closest to him is full to bursting with at least half a dozen loudly chattering patrons, all of whom are laughing raucously over something on their phones. One of them rolls his eyes in exasperation and offers Charlie a broad smile of welcome.

There's a comfy, domestic quality to the whole inn. One end is dominated by a huge TV set into the wall over an ornate fireplace, framed by squashy couches and two bright floor lamps that don't even slightly match each other. An image springs to mind unbidden of himself, lounging on the couch closest to the flames, typing with feverish inspiration. It's too idealistic, too soon, clashes too falteringly with the knot of homesickness in his gut. Almost without thinking, he backs away from it and makes his way instead towards the bar.

At the other end of the room, there's a man with a Switch commentating loudly to the bartender about the woes of Zelda. Charlie compliments his taste and he cocks his head with fierce appreciation. Raising her eyebrows indulgently, a blonde woman sips from her glass on the stool next to him. But all the general small-town weirdness pales next to who can only be Becca.

On seeing Charlie, she abandons the bar to evaluate him and he notes that her feet are in fact bare. Her makeup is immaculate, her hands manicured. Every single person in the inn greets her with wild enthusiasm as she passes.

"Well, wouldn't you look at that," she says quietly. Charlie feels the insane urge to cover himself under her searching gaze. If she could grab him by the chin and inspect him like a prize animal, he thinks she would not hesitate. "Student, definitely. Magical studies, judging from the cinnamon. Human? Odd. Never met a human who finished an MS course. Here for research. So at least three months, conservatively. Hm."

Charlie stutters out the weak beginnings of a response, slightly awed by her abrupt dissection of his entire purpose for being here. Luckily for him, the woman from the bar sidles up and easily bumps her hip in an act of friendly diffusion.

"Becca, you look like you're about to eat him! Welcome to town." She claps him on the shoulder and he almost falls, _again._

"Thank you! I'm Cha-uh, Slime," - Trav's warning flickers through his mind, probably superstitious nonsense but still - "Uh, I'm here to write a treatise for my degree, like...Becca said, so I'm gonna be around for a while."

A few interviews, sources for his work. That's all. No need to get too friendly. But he doesn't say that part.

"You may call me Minx," Becca says seriously, and the other woman scoffs over Charlie's politely blank expression.

"Don't be a tease. That's Becca, I'm Niki, and I assume you're Charlie," she adds. He nods, chewing his lip as they chuckle - some in-joke he doesn't understand. "At least you're well read. How was the trip up here?"

Painfully relieved by this segue into the mundane, he decides he likes Niki very much. She has a subtle German accent and attentive watery eyes that keep listing off to the full booth.

"Great, actually! The train nearly broke down a couple of times, but the hike was nice. I met a homesteader in the woods who knew the shortest route," he reassures as their faces fall.

"There aren't any homesteads around here," Niki corrects him immediately, glancing over at Becca with a flickering unreadable expression. "The whole forest is a protected area. Legal shit." That's odd. Charlie expands, hoping for a flicker of recognition.

"Maybe he was a dryad, I dunno. Seemed pretty chill though, nice enough guy, said he was called Trav and-"

The rest of the sentence falls away into the void, because in that moment Charlie's most anxious nightmare comes true. Silence falls, and every pair of eyes stares at him in shades of shocked ranging from pale amusement (one of the men in the booth) to vivid horror (Niki, specifically).

"That's...I mean...uh." Even Becca appears lost for words, and even after one conversation with her the effect is mildly unsettling. "Hmm."

After a brief moment of silence, the tallest of the diners swoops in and introduces himself as Ted. Charlie at once feels safer, even as his expression communicates the same kind of manic energy Becca has just deflated from. Everyone goes back to their meals and banter as if a switch has been flipped. He looks Charlie up and down appraisingly, and comes to a conclusion with a low birdlike whistle that feels not entirely friendly.

"Totally mortal? Goddamn." Wait. What? "You're a lucky bastard and make no mistake."

Charlie's mouth works faster than his brain. Being mort- isn't _rare._ Almost two thirds of the entire population of the planet is human, it's not something to fucking _point_ _out._ Questions spill out faster than he can refine them, but Ted steamrolls over all and each with seemingly no effort at all.

"I guess he took a liking to you," he shrugs, and the man with the Switch snorts. "I don't know how much you know about magic - we can assume a little bit from the cinnamon - but by rights you should be a human-coloured smear in some Unseelie alleyway by now. Lucky, lucky."

Charlie thinks he's going to die. The cinnamon stick dangling from his backpack had been a parting gift from Condi, a thoughtful protective ward from a talented roommate, but now it feels strange and heavy against his ribs. Either everyone here is a metric tonne more magical than he had thought - that's quickly becoming a distinct possibility - or he's finally found the place he's been looking for. Not just for his treatise, but for his whole degree. The Fae? Here? Good God.

He has so much fucking student debt already, man.

Becca - or maybe Minx, she answers to both - tries her damnedest to set him up with a room and a summer job after shooing the townspeople out (Ted shoots him a bared wolfish grin on his way out, textbook werewolf), and Charlie can't find it in himself to say no to the former when he realises how little she charges. In fact, he's tempted to ask if she is aware of how money functions. She's having fun with it, though, so who is he to deny her what seems to be a genuine novelty?

It's not exactly where he wants to sleep, but under a thin layer of dust coating the upstairs rooms there seems to be a perfectly serviceable bedroom and storage for his shit. Charlie's dumb rugged fantasy of roughing it can wait until tomorrow.

The only hitch in proceedings is when he tries to leave.

"Not safe," Becca's voice informs him cheerfully the moment he successfully slips downstairs. She's gnawing at an apple by the fireplace with her back to him, watching something dramatic-looking on Netflix. A paltry sliver of moon illuminates the street outside in its pale light. 

He doesn't want to piss off his first benefactor on this godforsaken trip. Then again, it's entirely possible that the manic pixie dream bartender is right. At this point, fucking anything could happen. This far from the urban, all kinds of rules relax - they say even magic, so harshly policed around human majorities, stops being predictable.

He doesn't reply. "Believe whatcha want." She shifts in her armchair, more a nonchalant slope of the shoulders than a shrug, and takes a loud bite of the apple. The crunch seems to echo, which is insane and stupid and not a thought he can afford to entertain if he's going to stay sane. 'Anything could happen' is just his anxieties. Magic is magic. It has laws, and limitations, and rules, and Minx is clearly human. Clearly. Probably. "Take a ward from by the shoe-rack, don't go too far, if you don't come back in a week I'm sellin' all your shit."

Unnerved, he slinks back upstairs and hears her laugh, an ungainly and warm sound that stumbles after him into the dingy room.

Sunrise feels too fast after that. There's a glimmer of gold through the ancient curtains, small town theatrics playing out over the windowsill, and then Minx is rapping on his door. He scrabbles through his backpack for a clean shirt and takes the stairs two at a time.

Despite her initial glee at the excitement of a guest, she seems almost bored as he goes through the motions of coffee and oatmeal. It's honestly a touch creepy. He texts Grace back with one hand and eats with the other, angled just slightly from Minx's chair. She murmurs something under her breath and the hob beneath her pan of eggs bursts into flame; the kind of casual homespun spell he covets. Her magic smells like Irish cream and sandalwood. In fairness, he does his best to slip out of the kitchen before jealousy begins to show.

It makes sense that there would be witches in a place like this. No human tourists to speak of - he closes the door guiltily behind him - and an abundance of natural components. But his treatise is supposed to focus on natural magic too, and he's going to find his sources in this forest no matter how many crazy werewolves get on his case.

This has been his dream forever and a day. Perhaps he can never truly be a part of it, but the magical world means _everything_ to Charlie. Always has, always will. No matter how weird or wild it is out here, no matter how far removed from civilisation, no matter how disconcertingly chummy the locals are - this is only the beginning. He has a feeling things are going to get a lot stranger by the time this town is done with him. He's right.


End file.
